


going home

by skuls



Series: X Files Rewatch Series [34]
Category: The X-Files
Genre: Episode: s01e13 Beyond the Sea, Episode: s03e02 Paper Clip, Episode: s10e04 Home Again, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-10
Updated: 2018-07-10
Packaged: 2019-06-08 11:15:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,975
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15242166
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skuls/pseuds/skuls
Summary: The last things Maggie Scully said to her family.





	going home

**Author's Note:**

> this fic mainly revolves around home again, but contains references to the whole show and before the show, mainly beyond the sea and paper clip. i also included some of the backstory disclosed in nothing lasts forever. warning for depiction of bill, melissa, and maggie’s deaths.
> 
> this fic is mostly closely connected to fate, and references other tidbits from other fics, but as always, it’s not necessary to have read fate to read this one.
> 
> i’m not religious, but since the character of maggie scully is, i drew heavily on christian beliefs in some parts because i figured it’d be what the character was thinking about. so warning up front for that as well.

Maggie can't remember the last thing she said to her mother and father when they passed, years ago. She can't remember the last thing she said to most of her aunts or uncles over the years. She's more ashamed of that than she'd ever admit, but the conversations have faded from her mind. They don't stand out as much as the other things. She remembers every single time that Dana disappeared, she remembers what she said to her daughter then. She remembers her children. And she remembers her last moments with her husband. 

They are walking in the door after driving home from Dana's, Maggie shivering with the December cold. Bill is standing in the doorway as he peels off his coat; Maggie is crossing the room to turn up the heat, mentally counting down to the argument she knows is coming. So she doesn't turn around when she hears Bill say, “Mags,” a certain amount of urgency in his voice. 

“Yes, I do know how you feel about the heat, Bill,” she says impatiently, her fingers on the knob. “But it is below freezing out there, and I am not going to…”

“Mags,” Bill says again, his voice soft and vulnerable in a way she hasn't heard in years. It's startling enough to make her freeze, and when she hears the thud, she turns around. 

She's at his side in an instance, kneeling on the floor even though her knees probably can't take it. “Bill, honey,” she says, touching the side of his face. They've never been very affectionate, the two of them, and she finds herself fiercely regretting it in this moment. “What's wrong? Where does it hurt?”

Bill isn't moving, but he smiles at her, just a little. “Bill, talk to me,” she says in an almost angry voice, but he doesn't. He just smiles. She races for the phone and calls an ambulance, but by then it's too late. He's already gone. 

The hours after pass in a blur of crying, calling her children to tell them what's happened. The years after are sharper, harsher to go through—she lives for twenty-two years after her husband dies, meets the grandchildren he’ll never get to meet, and it feels oddly familiar, considering that she largely raised their children by herself. But it is excruciating at the same time, knowing that she'll never see him again. He'd been around more since retirement, since the kids moved out, and it had been nice. She misses him so much sometimes. 

But however she feels in the wake of Bill's death throughout the years, that moment will always stick out in her mind: the moment of Bill saying his nickname for her, the one he used so often before they were married and so little after all four children were born, as their marriage faded into routine and month after month after month of her doing everything herself. The years following his retirement had been the closest they'd gotten to those days before their marriage, still on the outs with both of their parents for the scandal of having a child and another on the way. It had all felt like a big adventure then. But they'd been young and silly and every moment had been precious, and Maggie remembers it the way she remembers her last conversation with her husband. The way he'd said her name then had reminded her of just how much he loved her. He died in their thirtieth year of marriage.

\---

Missy is harder to recall. Her little girl, who never lived to see thirty-five. The one she had thought was safe; she'd thought it was Dana in the hospital, and she's utterly grateful that she still has Dana, after everything she's been through, but she thought Melissa's safety was a given. She never knew she had to worry. 

For a while, she thinks Missy might live—in those heart-pounding, tense moments spent by her hospital bed, she prays for hours and hours that Melissa will live. Prays harder than she's ever prayed before. She was torn apart when Bill died, she hates being alone in that huge old house, but at least he had lived his  _ life _ . Done all the things he wanted to do. Missy is so young. And she wants so much more for her daughter than this. She prays and prays until her fingers are white from clutching the prayer beads too hard. Before they take Missy back to operate on her, Maggie strokes her hand, her hair, whispers, “I'm here, Missy. I'm right here. And when you get out of there, I'll be here still.” But Missy never comes back out. 

Remembering her last moments with Melissa are harder, the memories filled with terror and grief and anger—anger at the men who would do this to an innocent woman and misplaced anger at Dana that she will regret for years and years. So she doesn't think of that. She thinks of when Melissa was a little girl, wild and free-spirited and loving, when she'd climb up in Maggie's lap at four or five and demand a story. A fairy tale that had a happy ending. Dana and Billy were always their father's children, but Maggie always thought of Melissa as hers, at least in the years before she grew rebellious and distanced herself. They fought for years and years, and in the space between Bill's death and Dana's abduction, Missy had disappeared in her own way, spent months on the West Coast living as freely as she always wanted as a teenager. Any updates Maggie received of her oldest daughter came from Billy. But they'd grown closer in the months between Dana's coma and Missy's death; Melissa had moved to Maryland to be closer to the both of them, and for a while, everything had been fine. They'd been close again. 

She remembers a lunch they'd had a few days before Melissa was shot, a pleasant meal that ended in the two of them hugging and Maggie knowing, in her heart, that everything between them was all right. She remembers a time when Missy was three, when Dana wasn't sleeping through the night yet and Billy almost never had a good attitude; Maggie had spent half the night pacing between her bedroom and the nursery, exhausted, and had found Missy standing outside the door of her and Billy's room. Weary, she'd started to send her back to bed, but Missy had just wordlessly taken her hand and pulled her back towards her bedroom. She'd climbed up in the empty space Bill would usually occupy and fallen right back asleep, much calmer than Maggie would've expected. Maggie smoothed her wild red curls before lying down and falling asleep herself, more peaceful than she'd felt in months. It's one of the only times she can remember being alone with Missy when she was small like that, and she holds onto that memory with everything in her. 

\---

Charlie has always been the most distant one, the one Maggie saw the least of all. He'd been the closest to Billy out of all his siblings (barring his bond with Dana based on age alone), but he'd remained quiet and distant throughout childhood, largely resentful of her in particular. Charlie had been sick with rheumatic fever when he was a baby, had nearly died, and as a result, Maggie had been largely protective of him for the remainder of his life. He'd been the baby of the family, and she had held onto him much tighter than she had her other children, having memorized the feeling of Charlie's hot little body and sensitive joints, her fear that he would die. She didn't want to risk that again. What kind of mother would she be if she ignored God’s gift of Charlie’s life by letting him run off and get hurt again?

Whenever he played too roughly with Bill or Dana, her instinct was to shelter him, pull him inside and scold him and send him to his room. He was always small and slight, the way her family had always been, and she always worried. She'd almost had a heart attack when he'd broken his leg at age nine, hadn't let him play outside with Billy and Dana for months even after he had fully healed. Charlie had always been furious at her and her protectiveness, had always complained to Bill whenever he'd come home, and Bill had always taken her side. That was one thing Maggie had always appreciated, the way that Bill had taken her side, especially with the Charlie issue. Until she hadn't, couldn't, anymore. 

When Charlie was fourteen, he became the only child left in the house and Maggie had stopped stifling him so much. She hadn't seen the point; with all his siblings gone, Charlie only ever went out with friends on occasion, and besides that, he was almost a man. She remained stern, but it was a breath of fresh air he'd never experienced. She was sure he relished every moment that she said yes to things she might've said no to before. She taught him how to drive and didn't bat an eye, watching Charlie’s steady hands on the wheel. And he'd probably thought things would be okay, would be better, until he turned eighteen. 

Bill was home from leave, and the three of them were eating dinner together. Bill commented on how strange it was to have the house so empty, with Billy and Missy and Dana all gone at college, and then he asked Charlie, “So what are your plans for the future, son?” Charlie had beamed proudly, telling his father that he wanted to go into the Navy, the way he and Billy had. But Bill's reaction hadn't been the happy, proud one that either Maggie or Charlie would've expected. He reacted angrily, telling Charlie he was much too sickly to enter the Navy, and that he need to consider his mother's feelings, the fear.of having two sons and a husband in the military, the possibility that something would happen to him. He called Charlie selfish, arrogant, a child.

The fight they'd had that night was worse than any fight they'd had before. Charlie was furious, protesting that they could control his entire life, protesting that he was just as strong as Billy, protesting that they were horrible and hypocritical and they were going to drive all their children away if they weren't careful, with their disapproval of Missy's life choices and Dana's decision to study forensics when she started medical school next year. Bill had roared at him, sent him to his room, and Charlie had been gone by morning. It turned out his job as a cashier at the grocery store had given him enough money to survive on his own for a few months. Maggie was horrified, frantic, but they could never find him, and by the time he'd sent a letter to confirm he was all right, he had already joined the Navy. Bill was furious, ready to disown Charlie and never talk to him again, but Maggie was just devastated. Eighteen years earlier, she'd almost lost her baby, and now she had, because she'd tried to hold on too tight. 

Charlie didn't pull away completely, at least not immediately. He wrote or called Maggie every now and then. He invited the kids and Maggie to his wedding (although Bill was notably left off of the invitation and Maggie had stayed home out of loyalty), and he sent pictures when his first child was born. He occasionally came to family holidays, although he stayed distant and largely opted to talk to Melissa and Dana. But he kept on fighting with Bill, Billy as an added player (since he always took his father's side), and it kept on going disastrously. Charlie was bitter and Bill was angry and the whole thing just kept being a disaster. Charlie's marriage didn't help, either; Bill insisted that he'd gotten married too young, that he wasn't ready for the responsibility, but he'd softened a little when Charlie's son was born. They'd visited, and Bill made an effort to be kind to Charlie's wife, and although it'd been tense, Maggie had foolishly thought everything would be okay. She'd thought wrong.

The last time they'd all been together was at Bill's funeral. They'd all been grieving, eyes red from crying, and Charlie had been standing off to the side with a guilty look on his face, his wife off somewhere with the baby. Dana had run out early to go work on a case, and Billy had been angry at that, and grief-stricken, and the whole thing had culminated in Melissa storming out while Billy and Charlie fought in the corner, Billy accusing Charlie of putting too much strain on Bill (practically accusing Charlie of killing him) and Charlie losing it and punching Billy in the face. It hadn't gone well. And after that, Charlie is done. He'll send presents at holidays, sometimes, but that is the extent of it. He won't let Billy or Maggie see his son; Missy and Dana have seen him a few times, and Dana even has pictures that she awkwardly shows to Maggie, but Maggie herself never has a relationship with her oldest grandson. He skips Missy's funeral. He calls to offer stiff, tearful condolences, but he doesn't come. Within the space of a few years, Maggie has no contact with her youngest son, no idea where he is or what he's doing.

She calls him in the last week of her life. She doesn't know why, she has no idea about what's coming, but she does, finds his number using a favor from one of Bill's old military friends. One of the men who signed her advance directive a year ago. She calls and the phone rings and rings until it goes to voicemail. An electronic voice announces that she should leave a message at the tone, and then her grown-up son's voice comes through, says, “Charlie Scully,” in a rushed voice, and Maggie wants to cry. She didn't know what he sounded like anymore, before now.

“Hi, honey, it's Mom,” she says tremblingly into the phone, willing herself not to cry. “I… know we haven't been in touch for a long time… for a lot of reasons… but I wanted to call and talk to you. And know that you're okay.” She sniffles a little, wiping her eyes. “I hope you know that I truly regret all the time we've spent apart. I've missed you, sweetheart. And I know you must be angry at me, but I hope that you can put that anger aside and call and talk to me. We'd all love to see you.” She has this silly wish that she can get all of her remaining family together, Bill and Tara and Matthew when they return from Germany, and Dana, who thankfully lives nearby, and Charlie. But she doesn't say this to Charlie. She ends the call with, “You can reach me at this number if you like. I love you, Charlie.” She hangs up the phone with the hope that she'll hear from him soon. But she doesn't hear from him. Not until Dana holds up her phone in the last few minutes of her life, and she hears her son's voice, asking what she wants to know, what the mystery is. She assumes he's referring to the fact that he hasn't returned her call, so therefore there  _ is _ no mystery—he doesn't want to talk to her. He's only doing this now because she's dying, or because Dana is asking him to. But she doesn't care. Just hearing his voice is enough. 

\---

She doesn't think much about William. Her grandson, that sweet little baby who is permanently frozen that way in her mind as if he had died, too. When she thinks of Matty, the only other grandson she's close to (she's still a little disappointed that she never had a granddaughter; unless Emily counts, the little girl who was a ghost of Melissa, whose grave she visits on occasion, but who she's always consistently confused about), she thinks of the gangly teenager who looks much more like Tara than Billy. But with William, who would be  _ fourteen _ now, she can only picture that tiny baby. 

She can remember the last day she spent with William, but she doesn't remember much because it'd become practically routine. She watches him a few days a week at her house (which Dana had thought would be safer after what had happened at her apartment with the man who wanted him dead—just saying the words horrified Maggie, who would want a baby dead?), and then drives him back to Dana's house at the end of the day. Everything is normal the last day, no implications of what is coming; she kisses William goodbye and promises to see him next week, she kisses Dana's cheek and promises to call her, suggests that they do lunch next week. She waves and says, ‘Bye-bye, William!” for what she doesn't realize is the last time. Dana takes the baby and hugs him and talks to him in the soft voice that Maggie still has trouble associating with her hardened daughter. She looks happy to be with her son, even if she looks a little tired. 

She looks happy. That is what Maggie remembers, later. 

Dana doesn't call her for nearly two weeks, except to tell her that she's taking some time off work and she doesn't need her to watch William. Maggie is a little suspicious, but she doesn't push, tells herself that Dana would surely tell her if William or Fox or herself wasn't all right. She should've pushed, she tells herself later, should've marched right down there and snatched William away until Dana came to her senses. But she doesn't, and then it's too late. And then William is gone, and Maggie doesn't speak to her only daughter for years.

She's forgiven Dana for most things—for keeping so many things from her, for disappearing with Fox, for the constant danger, even for Missy (though forgiving her for that was truly a burden)—but she can't exactly reconcile her feelings about William. Not when she thinks of the grandson she'll never get to know. He was named after Bill, Dana had told her, after her father and Fox’s father, who was also apparently named Bill, and after Fox himself. But when Maggie had looked at William, she'd thought of her Bill. She'd thought of Dana as a little girl. She'd thought of all her daughter's pain and hoped it'd be relieved in that little baby. She'd been so grateful to have a grandchild nearby, but now. Now, she can only think of the grandson she lost. 

\---

She calls Billy in Germany the day before it all comes to an end. She had been angry at Billy for moving to Germany, once, but Maggie Scully has had plenty of misplaced anger in her life, and she's ready to let that go now. Of all her children, she's probably stayed the closest with Billy. She calls and talks to him for the better part of an hour. Billy tells her about life on the base and the friends Tara has made and how Matty's German is gradually improving—”I should've had Dana tutor him before we left,” he says with a laugh—and asks her about Dana and about herself, what life is like there and how her heart is. “I really miss you, Mom,” he says finally. “We're excited to see you in a few weeks for Christmas.”

They're flying down, Matthew and Tara and Billy, and Dana's supposed to come over as well. It's the first time Billy has gotten leave for Christmas, and Maggie is overjoyed that she'll have the whole family together. “I'm so excited to see all of you,” she says in a choked voice. 

Billy hesitates before asking, “Should I hang up now, Mom? This must be calling you a fortune.”

“Oh, that doesn't matter,” she says, because it doesn't. “Are Tara and Matty there?”

She talks to Tara for a while about books and knitting and new recipes she's been trying, and then Matthew comes on the phone. His voice is so deep, he's very nearly a man now, and he reminds her, maybe a little rudely, not to call him Matty. But other than that, he's perfectly sweet, talks to her for much longer than his mother did. He has stories about school and his friends on the base and things that his parents have done. When it's time for him to get off, he says, “Bye, Grandma, I love you,” in the trained way that children have. But there seems to be sincerity in it. 

“Goodbye, Matty,” she says, genuinely unable to resist that one. (Although she can picture Matty's wince.) “Is your father there? Could you put him back on?”

There's a clatter of empty air as she hears Matthew bellow, “Ma!” away from the speaker. He comes back on and says, “Sorry, I think Dad left for work. I can have him call you.”

“Oh, no, that's okay,” Maggie says. There's a picture on a fridge of Billy as a child, red-headed and smiling into the camera. He looks so much like Bill. He was such a cute baby; it had been just the two of them so often when he was little, Bill off at sea, her an unmarried single mother. (She has more sympathy for Dana and her former situation with William than Dana will ever know; she had Billy and Missy both before she was married, she knows what it is like to wait for someone to come home to you and your baby.) She smiles a little, remembering Billy learning to walk as she held his hands, so young that she barely knew what to do with herself or with Billy; Billy's astonished baby face when he felt Missy kick for the first time and the way he yanked his hands away, the way he suggested they name the new baby “Mama” since he knew he was named after his daddy and thought the new baby should be named after her. “Just… do me a favor and tell him I love him, too, Matthew. I love all of you.”

Matty agrees and hangs up. Maggie listens to the dial tone for a long time.

\---

She has as many regrets with Dana as she has with Charlie and Missy. Probably because Dana is the child she resents the most, and she can't stop feeling guilty for that. She's confessed it so many times, asked forgiveness, but it never feels like enough.

She never expected this. Dana was always the most well-behaved out of all her children growing up, the most obedient. They had never been especially close—Dana had always gotten left out a bit, in traditional middle child fashion, and was independent enough that it never seemed to matter, and she'd always been closer to Bill anyway. But she'd lived the closest as an adult, gone to college the closest, was always home. They'd been much closer before Dana's life was consumed by her career. 

Maggie and Bill had both disapproved of the FBI for Dana, even though they'd both been proud of her at the same time. But Maggie had never expected it to go as far as it did. Constant abductions and hospital visits, a terminal illness with a mysterious cure, a little girl who looked too much like her daughters and a grandson she'd never see again, and years of no contact from Dana at all. The affair (for lack of a better term) with her partner. Maggie had always liked Fox Mulder, more or less, but never nearly as much as she could. She'd probably liked him best when he'd promised to bring Dana home, and he had. But there were times when she hated him in a way she could never hate her daughter. In the wake of Missy's death. In the period of time when she thought Dana would die, too, before he saved her life. Every minute he was away from Dana and William (because he didn't  _ have  _ to leave, not the way Bill had, no matter what Dana said about his life being in danger), and when he'd taken Dana away in those terrible few years of no contact. 

She resented Dana and Fox, and then she couldn't resent them anymore. After a string of postcards from Dana, few and vague, she'd reappeared on Maggie's doorstep at the beginning of 2004, tearful and apologetic. And Maggie welcomed her back—welcomed them both back—because what else could she do? Dana was her daughter, her only daughter, and Maggie couldn't bear to lose another child. To lose Dana, again, after all the times of losing her before. She welcomed them in without judgement, and she began to understand them in a way she hadn't before. How much they loved and relied on each other. It'd gotten worse between Dana and Fox, years later, after they were married, but she could still always see it. They had what she and Bill had: a loving life together. 

She can't say that the resentment isn't there still, sometimes, but it's easier to ignore. She has her daughter back now. Her sweet Dana. 

Dana is the one who comes when Maggie is dying, when she's in a coma. She asks for Charlie, but Dana comes, and Maggie is grateful for that. She's glad to have her baby with her.

\---

When Dana was a little girl, around six or seven, Maggie's grandmother died: Katherine, the woman she'd named Dana after. Dana had gone to the funeral, a look that was solemn yet fearful on her face the whole time, clutching to her father's hand. Missy had cried, but Dana was quiet. She sat in the backseat of the car with her hands knotted in her lap and stared out the window. 

Later, Maggie found her sitting quietly in front of the TV, still in her funeral dress. She nudged her shoulder and said, “It's time to change out of this, Dana.”

And Dana had looked up at her with a look in her eyes that was much older than she was, and asked the question that all children ask at one point or another: “Mom, what happens to us after we die?”

Surprised, Maggie said what she'd been told all her life, where she believed her grandmother was. “Heaven, honey. You know that.”

“Yes, but…” Dana was pressing her fingers together in the anxious way that children have. “What's heaven  _ like _ ?”

“We don't know, Dana,” said Maggie, genuinely sad and tired (she'd always been close to her grandmother) and unwilling to linger over this. Not right now. Bill could handle this subject, and she was ready to tell Dana to go ask him. “All we know is what the Bible tells us. It's a happy place. It's our reward.”

Dana played with a strand of her straightened hair, which Maggie had spent forever fixing that morning. “Do you think Great-Grandmother is happy there?” she asked quietly. 

And Maggie had said, “Yes, Dana. I do.”

Dana has experienced so much tragedy in her life, and Maggie has seen it all. Dana speaks to her now, calls back to her own experience in a coma, all those years ago. Maggie can hear every word. She says that she knows that Bill and Melissa are there where Maggie is, where she's going, but she reminds her that she is here, that the rest of Maggie's family is here. “Please, Mom,” she says, “don't go home yet. I need you.” And Maggie wants more than anything to be able to stay, to do this one thing for her daughter. But it's time. It's time to go home. 

\---

Fox comes, later, and he sits with them. Maggie can hear them talking, quietly, and then she hears something else. Dana speaking to someone familiar. The sound of her long-lost son. 

She opens her eyes and sees Dana and Fox crowded around the bed. “Mom?” Dana says eagerly, emotionally. “She just opened her eyes,” she says into the phone, to Charlie. 

Fox leans forward, asks her, “Do you know where you are? Do you know your name?”

Maggie smiles. For all her resentment and distance from Dana and Fox, she really does understand them both more than they'll ever know. And here they are. Her lost son's voice is echoing in her ears, and their son is lost, too. She takes Fox’s hand and tries to make them understand. The both of them. They aren't that different, and now it's their turn to make amends with their son. “My son,” she says, “is named William, too.”

Dana looks at Fox, the phone clutched in her hand, her eyes full of emotion. Maggie sighs softly, ready to leave, right here. Looking at her daughter, who'd once looked up at her with those bright blue eyes and asked what happens to us when we die. There are so many things she wants to say to Dana (to Billy, to Charlie), and she doesn't have time to say any of them. She lets herself slip away, and the last thing she hears is Dana saying, “Mom?”

\---

Dana was right: Bill and Missy are there, both of them, and they're both so happy. Bill kisses her and calls her Mags. Missy hugs her and asks for a story. Maggie wishes that they could all be together again, the way they haven't been in years, but this is enough. She's content to wait.

Wherever she is, it's a beautiful place. 

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this fic in an attempt to further explore the scully family and their backstory. (and also because i’ve written way too much about the mulder family.) i wanted to explore things like charlie’s estrangement and maggie’s relationship with scully. some explanations:
> 
> \- the plot point about maggie and bill having melissa and bill jr. before they were married is pretty common in fanon. i drew from the mention of the proposal in beyond the sea, which happened after the cuban blockade--aka the same year melissa was born. it could’ve just been another throwaway continuity error, but i liked the idea of it. especially with what occurred to me during this fic: if this is true, than maggie would’ve largely been a single mom raising her son william (bill jr.) when he was a baby, similar to how scully briefly raises william. i’d never thought of it that way before now, but i thought it was a cool tie-in to maggie’s last words in home again.
> 
> \- there are a lot of fics explaining why charlie is estranged, and i didn’t want to copy any of them, so i drew from nothing lasts forever and its discussion of charlie having rheumatic fever. since i’d already portrayed him as distant and quiet and with a rocky relationship with bill sr. in fate, i figured this interpretation would be interesting. charlie’s son here is supposed to be the nephew scully mentions babysitting in home who watches babe 15 times a day. 
> 
> \- the funeral i mentioned in the last section is supposed to be the funeral scully dreams about in christmas carol. the detail of maggie’s grandmother katherine, who she named scully after, is one i made up in fate, but i liked the reference so i went with it.


End file.
